From magazines to blogs: The shifting boundaries of fashion journalism

Abstract

Current literature examining journalism’s boundary work has focused mostly on traditional, hard news journalism, while soft news journalism, such as lifestyle journalism, has largely been overlooked. Guided by the framework of boundary work, this paper examines how traditional fashion journalists and fashion bloggers define their own professionalism and what that says about the negotiation of fashion journalism’s boundaries. Through a textual analysis of the ‘About’ pages of 40 mainstream fashion magazine websites and fashion blogs, this paper shows that fashion magazines and fashion blogs demonstrate differences in four areas: mode of presentation, rituals of asserting authority, organisational structure, and relationship with the audience. For each theme, fashion magazine websites and fashion blogs display different approaches that help to shape their professional identities. These four areas serve as markers of the emerging – and perhaps blurring – boundaries between the two media actors. Findings from this study have implications not just on boundary work in journalism, but also on the very definitions of journalist and journalism, and on the evolving digital cultural industry, particularly in relation to lifestyle-centred content.